Museum of Power Visit

For the next part of the Virtual Environments assignment we had been assigned a pre-arranged client for whom a group project would be completed for. Having formed a group of four members, today we visited the client which was The Museum of Power, located in Langford, Maldon, Essex. The purpose of the visit was to attain a better understanding of the type of exhibits the Museum has on offer, as well as how some of these function. The Museum itself is rather dated and consequently the client would like us to produce a 3D animation demonstrating the working of a chosen piece of machinery.

Therefore during the visit hundreds of reference photos were taken using digital cameras, in addition to short video footage of several items to capture their physical operation and how the moving parts interact.

The vast majority of the Museum's content was focused around steam powered equipment such as pumps, engines and other various tools. Before deciding exactly which attraction to produce an animation for, several group meetings will be scheduled so that discussions can be held concerning individual idea/concepts. A review of the photo's & video footage captured will also be conducted which in turn will aid the decision making process.

Overall I feel that visiting the museum was an invaluable experience as a vast amount of content was captured which will serve as vital reference point during the modelling and animation production stages. The only negative aspects that come to mind involving the visit was the fact that a large number of attractions were either roped off or in glass display cases. This therefore made it extremely difficult to try and photograph the different angles of each object, which may prove essential when attempting to create a 3D representation. Consequently if further reference images are required for a particular object these may have to be sourced elsewhere using the internet and printed media for example.